Whole-body Motion Control of an Omnidirectional Wheel-Legged Mobile Manipulator via Contact-Aware Dynamic Optimization
🤖 AI Summary
Leg-wheel hybrid omnidirectional mobile manipulators face challenges including high-dimensional kinematic redundancy, complex wheel-ground contact dynamics (involving both point and line contacts), and difficulty in coordinating locomotion and manipulation. Method: This paper proposes a contact-aware unified whole-body dynamic optimization control framework. It innovatively integrates point/line contact modeling with a mode-switching-free 4WIS-4WID (four-wheel independent steering and driving) kinematic model, augmented by warm-start initialization and online optimization acceleration techniques to enable real-time high-dimensional model predictive control. Contribution/Results: Simulation and experimental results demonstrate significant improvements in system agility (high-speed omnidirectional mobility), terrain adaptability (robust traversal over complex surfaces), and manipulation accuracy within semi-structured environments. The framework establishes a robust and efficient paradigm for leg-wheel cooperative control, with direct applicability to industrial automation and urban logistics scenarios.
Application Category
📝 Abstract
Wheel-legged robots with integrated manipulators hold great promise for mobile manipulation in logistics, industrial automation, and human-robot collaboration. However, unified control of such systems remains challenging due to the redundancy in degrees of freedom, complex wheel-ground contact dynamics, and the need for seamless coordination between locomotion and manipulation. In this work, we present the design and whole-body motion control of an omnidirectional wheel-legged quadrupedal robot equipped with a dexterous manipulator. The proposed platform incorporates independently actuated steering modules and hub-driven wheels, enabling agile omnidirectional locomotion with high maneuverability in structured environments. To address the challenges of contact-rich interaction, we develop a contact-aware whole-body dynamic optimization framework that integrates point-contact modeling for manipulation with line-contact modeling for wheel-ground interactions. A warm-start strategy is introduced to accelerate online optimization, ensuring real-time feasibility for high-dimensional control. Furthermore, a unified kinematic model tailored for the robot's 4WIS-4WID actuation scheme eliminates the need for mode switching across different locomotion strategies, improving control consistency and robustness. Simulation and experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, demonstrating agile terrain traversal, high-speed omnidirectional mobility, and precise manipulation under diverse scenarios, underscoring the system's potential for factory automation, urban logistics, and service robotics in semi-structured environments.
Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Unified control of wheel-legged manipulator robots with redundant degrees of freedom
Managing complex wheel-ground contact dynamics during locomotion and manipulation
Real-time high-dimensional optimization for contact-aware whole-body motion control
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Contact-aware whole-body dynamic optimization framework
Warm-start strategy for real-time control
Unified kinematic model eliminating mode switching
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